2019 book 69

Laura Lippmann's Lady in the Lake
I love when Lippman turns her gimlet eye to mid-century Jews in Baltimore, so was pleased to dive into her latest. In this one, a thirty-something Jewish housewife, dissatisfied with her life and wanting to make a mark on the world, leaves her husband and tries to get a job as a reporter at a local paper. And then she becomes pretty obsessed with the murder of a young black woman, the titular Lady in the Lake, a murder that someone wants to sweep under the rug. I liked the way Lippman constructed the narrative here—the main narrators are the wannabe reporter and the murder victim, but almost everyone the reporter encounters gets their own little POV chapter. It’s a nice way to build up the world and makes for a fun and quick read. I haven’t quite decided how I feel about the ending, but I definitely enjoyed reading this. A-.


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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in July.